Digital Commons Network^™

Medtronic V. Boston Scientific: Allocating The Burden Of Proof In Declaratory Judgment Actions For Patent Non-Infringement, Brianna Strange

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Medtronic, Inc. v. Boston Scientific Corporation, in which the Court will decide which party bears the burden of proof in a declaratory judgment action for patent non-infringement.

At Home In The Outer Limits: Daimlerchrysler V. Bauman And The Bounds Of General Personal Jurisdiction, Todd W. Noelle

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, DaimlerChrysler v. Bauman, in which the Court may decide whether maintaining a wholly-owned subsidiary in a forum state can render a foreign parent corporation "essentially at home" in that state, thereby permitting the forum state to exercise general personal jurisdiction over the parent corporation.

Atlantic Marine V. J-Crew: The Future Of Forum-Selection Clauses In Federal Courts, Sarah Sheridan

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Atlantic Marine v. J-Crew, in which the Court may clarify a circuit split regarding the enforceability of forum-selection clauses by deciding which procedure should govern the enforcement of these clauses and which party carries the burden of proof in these disputes.

The Voting Rights Act's Fight To Stay Rational: Shelby County V. Holder, Sudeep Paul

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Shelby County v. Holder, in which the Court may decide whether Congress's 2006 reauthorization of Section 5 and Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act was constitutional.

Maryland V. King: The Fourth Amendment Spirals Down The Double Helix, Sitara V. Witanachchi

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Maryland v. King, in which the Court may decide whether requiring an arrestee to submit to a buccal swab for identification purposes violates the arrestee's privacy interests under the Fourth Amendment.

Hollingsworth V. Perry: Expressive Harm And The Stakes Of "Marriage", Corinne Blalock

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, in which the Court may decide whether Proposition 8 violates either the Equal Protection Clause or the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Patent Exhaustion And The Federal Circuit’S Deviant Conditional Sale Doctrine: Bowman V. Monsanto, Adam Garmezy

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

No abstract provided.

Mcburney V. Young: Testing The Limits Of Citizens-Only Freedom Of Information Laws, Patrick Jamieson

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, McBurney v. Young, in which the Court will decide whether the citizens-only provision of Virginia's Freedom of Information Act violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause or the dormant Commmerce Clause.

Materiality Immaterial? Revisiting Standards For Securities Fraud Class Certification In Amgen V. Connecticut Retirement Plans And Trust Funds, Nancy My Nguyen

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Amgen v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds, in which the Court will decide whether plaintiffs in securities fraud class actions must prove materiality at the class certification stage, or if that inquiry is more appropriately left to later stages of litigation. The case requires the Court to resolve a circuit split on this issue, and will have far-reaching implications for the future of securities fraud litigation.

In All Fairness: Us Airways V. Mccutchen And The Use Of Equitable Defenses In Erisa Reimbursement Claims, Ravi Patel

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, US Airways v. McCutchen, in which the Court will decide whether courts are permitted to use equitable principles to rewrite contractual language for benefit plans under ERISA. In so doing, the Court must decide whether to give effect to the Third Circuit's holding, that ERISA does permit this use of equitable principles, which runs contrary to the majority of circuits.

Determining Rights To Resell: Kirtsaeng V. John Wiley & Sons, Sandra Yoo

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, in which the Court will decide whether the "first sale" doctrine applies to foreign-made copies. Broadly, the case will determine the ability of manufacturers to control the distribution of foreign-made copies once they have been sold and asks the Court to resolve a circuit split on the correct interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Copyright Act.

The Prying Nose: Florida V. Jardines And Warrantless Dog-Sniff Tests On Private Property, Ali Mirsaidi

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Florida v. Jardines, in which the Court will decide whether a dog-sniff test at the front door of a home constitutes a Fourth Amendment search. The case asks the Court to resolve its prior decisions holding that dog-sniff tests are minimally intrusive when conducted in public with its decisions affording higher protections for searches of private residences.

Clapper V. Amnesty International: Who Has Standing To Challenge Government Surveillance?, Elisa Sielski

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Clapper v. Amnesty International, in which the Court will examine whether plaintiffs have standing to challenge possible government surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In so doing, the Court will have to revisit the standards for standing in surveillance cases in light of Laird v. Tatum and a circuit split stemming from that case.

Evans V. Michigan: The Impact Of Judicial Error On Double Jeopardy Protection, Zi-Xiang Shen

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Evans v. Michigan, in which the Court has an opportunity to clarify the bounds of the prohibition on double jeopardy. More specifically, the Court will determine what, if any, impact judicial error has on double jeopardy protection under the Fifth Amendment.

Take The Money And Run: Detainment Incident To A Search Warrant In Bailey V. United States, Alexander Hall

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Bailey v. United States, in which the Court will examine the scope of permissible non-arrest seizures in the context of a detainment incident to a search warrant. The case offers the Court an opportunity to clarify its holding in Michigan v. Summers--that occupants of premises being searched pursuant to a valid warrant may be detained during the search--by determining whether such a detainment is permissible when the occupants have left the premises.

Collective Action Federalism And Its Discontents, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

An increasing number of scholars argue that the Commerce Clause is best read in light of the collective action problems that the nation faced under the Articles of Confederation. The work of these “collective action theorists” is reflected in Justice Ginsburg’s opinion in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. Writing for four Justices, she stressed the “collective-action impasse” at the state level to which the Affordable Care Act responds.

In its purest form, a collective action approach maintains that the existence of a significant problem of collective action facing two or more states is both necessary and sufficient …

Reverse-Commandeering, Margaret Hu

Faculty Scholarship

Although the anti-commandeering doctrine was developed by the Supreme Court to protect state sovereignty from federal overreach, nothing prohibits flipping the doctrine in the opposite direction to protect federal sovereignty from state overreach. Federalism preserves a balance of power between two sovereigns. Thus, the reversibility of the anti-commandeering doctrine appears inherent in the reasoning offered by the Court for the doctrine’s creation and application. In this Article, I contend that reversing the anti-commandeering doctrine is appropriate in the context of contemporary immigration federalism laws. Specifically, I explore how an unconstitutional incursion into federal sovereignty can be seen in state immigration …

Brief Of Federalism Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent Windsor, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Algorithms And Speech, Stuart M. Benjamin

Faculty Scholarship

One of the central questions in free speech jurisprudence is what activities the First Amendment encompasses. This Article considers that question in the context of an area of increasing importance – algorithm-based decisions. I begin by looking to broadly accepted legal sources, which for the First Amendment means primarily Supreme Court jurisprudence. That jurisprudence provides for very broad First Amendment coverage, and the Court has reinforced that breadth in recent cases. Under the Court’s jurisprudence the First Amendment (and the heightened scrutiny it entails) would apply to many algorithm-based decisions, specifically those entailing substantive communications. We could of course adopt …

Plenary Power Preemption, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Story Of Ewing: Three Strikes Laws And The Limits Of The Eighth Amendment Proportionality Review, Sara Sun Beale

Faculty Scholarship

In 1994 California enacted the nation's harshest "three strikes" law. Under this law, any felony can serve as a third strike, and conviction of a third strike requires a mandatory prison sentence of 25 years to life. In Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11 (2003), the Supreme Court held that sending a drug addict who shoplifted three golf clubs to prison for 25 years to life under the three strikes law did not violate the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment. The chapter for the forthcoming Criminal Law Stories tells the story of the Ewing case, describing …

Twelve-Person Federal Civil Jury In Exile, Thomas D. Rowe Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Text, History, And Tradition: What The Seventh Amendment Can Teach Us About The Second, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

In District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court made seemingly irreconcilable demands on lower courts: evaluate Second Amendment claims through history, avoid balancing, and retain as much regulation as possible. To date, lower courts have been unable to devise a test that satisfies all three of these conditions. Worse, the emerging default candidate, intermediate scrutiny, is a test that many jurists and scholars consider exceedingly manipulable.

This Article argues that courts could look to the Supreme Court’s Seventh Amendment jurisprudence, and in particular the Seventh Amendment’s “historical test,” to help them devise a …

Biometric Id Cybersurveillance, Margaret Hu

Faculty Scholarship

The implementation of a universal digitalized biometric ID system risks normalizing and integrating mass cybersurveillance into the daily lives of ordinary citizens. ID documents such as driver’s licenses in some states and all U.S. passports are now implanted with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. In recent proposals, Congress has considered implementing a digitalized biometric identification card—such as a biometric-based, “high-tech” Social Security Card—which may eventually lead to the development of a universal multimodal biometric database (e.g., the collection of the digital photos, fingerprints, iris scans, and/or DNA of all citizens and noncitizens). Such “hightech” IDs, once merged with GPS-RFID tracking …

Analogies And Institutions In The First And Second Amendments: A Response To Professor Magarian, Darrell A.H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, Professor Darrell Miller responds to Professor Gregory Magarian's criticism of the manner in which judges, advocates, and scholars have used the First Amendment to frame Second Amendment interpretive questions.

A General Defense Of Erie Railroad Co. V. Tompkins, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins was the most important federalism decision of the Twentieth Century. Justice Brandeis’s opinion for the Court stated unequivocally that “[e]xcept in matters governed by the Federal Constitution or by acts of Congress, the law to be applied in any case is the law of the state. . . . There is no federal general common law.” Seventy-five years later, however, Erie finds itself under siege. Critics have claimed that it is “bereft of serious intellectual or constitutional support” (Michael Greve), based on a “myth” that must be “repressed” (Craig Green), and even “the worst decision …

Firearm Localism, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Scholarship

Second Amendment doctrine is largely becoming a line-drawing exercise, as courts try to determine which “Arms” are constitutionally protected, which “people” are permitted to keep and bear them, and in which ways those arms and people can be regulated. But the developing legal regime has yet to account for one potentially significant set of lines: the city limits themselves. In rural areas, gun crime and gun control are relatively rare, and gun culture is strong. In cities, by contrast, rates of violent gun crime are comparatively high, and opportunities for recreational gun use are scarce. And from colonial Boston to …

In Praise Of Judge Fletcher-And Of General Standing Principles, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Saving The First Amendment From Itself: Relief From The Sherman Act Against The Rabbinic Cartels, Barak D. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

America’s rabbis currently structure their employment market with rules that flagrantly violate the Sherman Act. The consequences of these rules, in addition to the predictable economic outcomes of inflated wages for rabbis and restricted consumer freedoms for the congregations that employ them, meaningfully hinder Jewish communities from seeking their preferred spiritual leader. Although the First Amendment cannot combat against this privately-orchestrated (yet paradigmatic) restriction on religious expression, the Sherman Act can. Ironically, however, the rabbinic organizations implementing the restrictive policies claim that the First Amendment immunizes them from Sherman Act scrutiny, thereby claiming the First Amendment empowers them to do …

Presidential Power, Historical Practice, And Legal Constraint, Curtis A. Bradley, Trevor W. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

The scope of the President’s legal authority is determined in part by historical practice. This Essay aims to better understand how such practice-based law might operate as a constraint on the presidency. Some scholars have suggested that presidential authority has become “unbounded” by law, and is now governed only or primarily by politics. At the same time, there has been growing skepticism about the ability of the familiar political checks on presidential power to work in any systematic or reliable fashion. Skepticism about law’s potential to constrain in this context is heightened by the customary nature of much of what …